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Show Social Security Bookkeeping Pains Eased by Electronic Data Poster The world's biggest bookkeeping operation is shifting to a new electronic system that can record on magnetic tape more than 100 seperate "bits" of social security information in-formation in a space smaller than a postage stamp. It will save taxpayers more than $1 million a year! now, probably more later plus untold amounts of storage space. And the new system will be able to answer questions about vast information piled into the electronic storehouse questions often Involving complex computation com-putation at a rate nl 100 per minute. The bookkeeping operation Is the records system of the Federal old-age and survivors insurance program where earnings records are kept for more than 180 million mil-lion individual Americans. Under OASI (social secruity), benefits for retired workers, or for j their surviving widows and chil- dren, are based on calendar quarters quar-ters of coverage and average monthly earnings. Periodic Listings So, to compute benefits', the government must post every three months the wage records of 65 million workers who are employed under OASI in any one quarter. In addition, once a year, it must record the earned income of nine million self-employed persons and others whose earnings earn-ings are reported annually. Altogether, the system now has more than 120 million accounts to keep up with accounts of those who have been under the system at one time or another. The operation is undertaken at : j the Baltimore administrative quarters of the Social Security Administration of the U. S. De-1 De-1 partment of Health, Education I and Welfare. I Card System Troubles i 1 Until recently, each individual's individ-ual's active account was sum- marized each year on a punch ' card about three inches wide and seven inches long. The problems of posting, storing and quickly computing benefits for each indi-, vidual was becoming staggering. I Fortunately, a new electronic tape computer machine has been 1 devejoped. It will cost about $291 thousands to convert to the new i system. The machine will be 'rented from a private business machine firm for about the same I as rental costs for the equipment it replaces. The tape will record 100 pieces of Information maximum for the old three by seven inch card in four-tenths of an Inch of tape, which is nine-sixteenths of an inch wide. Some of the shorter Individual accounts, also recorded now on the three by seven inch card, will be kept on only one-tenth of an inch of tape. Record Transfer Problem The mere transfer of the pres- ent accounts to the tape system sys-tem is one of the biggest sorting sort-ing and recording operations ever undertaken in bookkeeping. The tape system will save about 3,400 square foet of floor space the first year. It will save an additionn.1 several thousand feet each year, as compared with the space that would have boon required for cards under the old system. The big saving, in addition to space, will come in matching names with proper account i numbers. Each year, about nine million names are reported to the bureau of OASI with incorrect account numbers. About 50 to 70 per cent of these mistakes can be corrected by a clerical chock of records on hand. On the others, oth-ers, a letter or personal visit may be necessary. That becomes expensive. Under the new system, sys-tem, the electronic tape machine will automatically match names and numbers in about 50 per cent of the incorrectly reported cases. In addition to posting and recording re-cording data and matching the names and number, the new machine ma-chine wlU compute benefits for about 35.000 to 40,000 claimants each week. It has boon costing less than two-thirds of a cent of each security se-curity tax dollar to keep the earnings records' of the nation's workers. The birth of the electronic elec-tronic age holds promise that it can be done for a fraction of that fraction, with still greater speed and accuracy. |